These trends are forging a society that sometimes evokes the infertile Britain in [novelist P.D.] James’s dystopia [in her novel “The Children of Men”]. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world, and there were rashes of Internet-enabled group suicides in the last decade. Rental “relatives” are available for sparsely attended wedding parties; so-called “babyloids” — furry dolls that mimic infant sounds — are being developed for lonely seniors; and Japanese researchers are at the forefront of efforts to build robots that resemble human babies. The younger generation includes millions of so-called “parasite singles” who still live with (and off) their parents, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of the “hikikomori”—“young adults,” Eberstadt writes, “who shut themselves off almost entirely by retreating into a friendless life of video games, the Internet and manga (comics) in their parents’ home.”

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31 Responses to The Children of (Japan’s) Men

Japan has always had a high suicide rate. Unlike Christian (or for that matter Islamic) cultures, Japan has retained the old honor/shame concept of honor-redeeming suicide in the face of failure. This is nothing new.

As for people living with their parents, until fairly recently this was quite normal in the US: at least one adult child would live with the parents as they aged, and eventually inherit the family home. In fact that ought appeal to the “crunchy” ethic in place of the modern custom of moving across the country and dumping Ma and Pa in a nursing home when they get old. But some American families still retain the notion of an adult child living at home; I come from such a family where this was not at all unusual.

And yes, we Americans have our video game addicts too. I know someone like that, who spends almost every free moment with whatever game is the latest fad. I also know some TV adicts who anesthetize themselves with the boob tube if nothing else demands their attention. And I myself had a couple phases of vidiocy I went through, once as a teenager and again in my 20s in reaction to some pretty unhappy stuff happening in my life. Depressed people do depressing things, and not just in Japan.

Yes, Japan is strange to Westerners. But with 128 million people in about the same area as California, the place is pretty crowded.

How much more insane is our demographic change, where the people who contributed far and away the most to building the society that put man on the moon are letting themselves be replaced by peoples that really haven’t accomplished all that much — at least seen maize was domesticated.

JonF, a hikikomori is not a game addict. What they do is fail to connect with society so badly that they wall themselves inside a single room for years or more, to the point where they will not even see their parents or a human being apart from the odd convenience store clerk. Sometimes they even board the door completely shut, only taking meals through a hole in it.

If you’d like a take on it, the anime series “Welcome to the N.H,K.” is a very black comedy about one Hikikomori who is slightly better adjusted than others.

The suicide…it’s different. There is no explanation, no honor or shame. Just people so alienated that they end it, or desperately try to find community in likeminded suicide clubs. This isn’t Yukio Mishima, this is people disappearing into Aokigahara forest to be found later by body removal crews.

One of the problems with demographic collapse, of course, is that such a formidable proportion of a citizenry is too old to be productive or, indeed, independent. It does strikes me that at least if there are millions of people leeching off their parents they can hardly complain when their parents rely on them…

The influence of Western escapist culture was always going to be disorienting for Japanese youths. They – especially the men – are essentially expected to work like Trojans until they drop into retirement. I suspect that keeping people enthusiastic about such a life depended on the perception that there was no alternative.

JonF that’s interesting, I always understood the idea of living with one’s elderly parents to be an almost exclusively Asiatic value. In Europe, I’ve never actually come across it except amonts the immigrant populations. Presumably the longer period of secularization of society in Olde Christendom is responsible for that.

Japan has a population density of 836 per square mile and a TFR of 1.39…
South Korea has a population density of 1,288 per square mile and a TFR of 1.23…
Taiwan has a population density of 1,849 per square mile and a TFR of 1.16…

Singapore, Hong Kong & Macau have even lower TFRs, they are basically population sinks…

I wonder how much a 1500 sqft apartment (2 bedrooms, kitchen, living room) cost in those countries, I bet it’s a pretty penny…

BTW for a sense of proportion the TFR in the US is 2.01 (basically replacement rate) and the population density is 84 per square mile…

And to make Mitchell Young happy:

For example, in 2005, TFR’s by ethnicity in the US (according to Time magazine, 10/30/06) were:

Japan has been in a recession since the early 1990’s which has to distort a culture, so I suspect that many of these problems are symptoms of the underlying lack of opportunity. For example, if you can’t get a job that pays enough to support a family then the responsible thing to do is not start one. Also about 80% of the population lives in cities where the perceived overcrowding may put a damper on the desire to have children.

An example outside of Japan would be Greece which has one of the lowest suicide rates in Europe, but their rate has jumped with the economic crisis as people perceive no options.

Given a choice between marriage and work women are choosing not to marry. This is largely because the a woman’s role in marriage is burdensome and unpleasant. Women are opting out of a system that they used to have to join. Combined with a strong stigma against out of wedlock child rearing and disdain for adoption means population rates are cratering. Unwillingness to consider immigration means that there is no one to fill the gap.

Parasite singles don’t live at home because they are lazy or selfish but because there is no tradition of or support for the formation of single adult households before marriage. The weird shut ins reflect the dysfunction of family structure, where men are mostly absent and uninvolved and women are excessively focused on the status and prospects of their children.

Japan has been in a recession since the early 1990′s which has to distort a culture, so I suspect that many of these problems are symptoms of the underlying lack of opportunity. For example, if you can’t get a job that pays enough to support a family then the responsible thing to do is not start one

Eamon Fingleton (a Scots business journalist who’s lived in Japan for decades and written books about it) has argueded in these (TAC‘s) pages that the reality of the Japanese recession is not as bad as perception of it we have in the West. He views the Japanese press as sort of a perception-management institution, and says that the idea of a Lost Decade is helpful for Japanese Big Business today. Their per-capita productivity level is still obscenely high, and they manufacture high-value components, some of which cannot be had anywhere else on earth, at any price. Plus, their MNC’s own.

Which leads me to believe that the malaise isn’t solely (or even primarily) economic. I think they’re still struggling to get over their defeat in WWII, and that the torment of that, along with the adoption of western conceptions of entertainment, coupled with their having some of the highest IQ averages on earth, have created a malaise that’s uniquely modern. They can do it, but what’s the point? When octopus-themed pornography starts looking better to you than the females in your social group do, there is a problem. I can’t put that on economics. Doing so rings super hollow.

How is same sex marriage doing in Japan? Is it anymore outlandish than some of the other behaviors described here? As to the young adults living with their parents, particularly the young women, I approve of them except that they do not save anything. But living at home, apparently harmoniously, with their parents has to be superior to shacking up with guys and loose living in their own places.

The article points out that Japan is getting the brunt of both ends of global demographic trends, without any immigration to help buffer it. Fewer people are getting married. And yet, childbirth outside of marriage is highly unusual. The population is overwhelmingly elderly.

It will make things very difficult economically for the next few decades, but it might not be the apocalypse for them. Japan’s elderly are unusually healthy (on average.) The society is more communal and conformist. Many of the elderly are likely to settle in well ordered groups under one roof, where caregivers can tend to them as needed.

A healthy society can absorb the impact of low birth rates for a generation or two, albeit painfully, if it stabilizes after that. Most countries had lower populations in decades past, and many did fine economically (our own included.) We may just be correcting back to 1930s or 1950s population levels globally. That’s not a problem. However, a fertility rate that does not even come close to 2 is a big problem over a longer time frame.

Re: There is no explanation, no honor or shame. Just people so alienated that they end it.

Don’t be so sure they are not ashamed. I rather suspect the shame is a private one, perhaps only partly admited to consciousness, that they are a failure and will never accomplish anything at all, dishonoring their families. Of course this is all mixed up with plain old garden variety depression too, of the sort that drives lonely, alienated people to put a bullet through their brain in this country too. My point is that Japan has traditionally allowed for suicide, unlike the moral code in most other nations where suicide is seen itself as cowardice, sin, or a symptom of a disease.
As for the hikikomori, that does sounds like a really extreme example of the “vidiocy” you can encounter in this country: people whose lives are so empty of anything that validates them, that they seek an alternate reality in online game worlds where they can accomplish great things according to the logic of thsoe fantasy worlds.

Re:I don’t know, I can only see it from the outside, but something’s up.

Lots of depressed and hopeless people, that’s what’s up. Come back here once we have a lost decade or two under our belt and you’ll see more of it in the US as well, except that because our culture valorizes violence we’ll probably also get an increase in acts of violence directed at others.

Re: I always understood the idea of living with one’s elderly parents to be an almost exclusively Asiatic value.

Well, I would agree it’s more general in Asia, to the point of being the default expectation. However it’s not rare in other cultures and if you look around the good old USA you’ll find examples without much searching, and not just due to the bad economy. My younger step-sister, gainfully employed (then) but unlucky at love, lived with her mother until Ma died, and then inherited the house (something her two real siblings and I fully agreed on.). My aunt had an (employed) adult son live with her until she died, and, again, he inherited the house. My grandmother moved in with the just-mentioned aunt (since her house was in a neighborhood that was decidedly de-gentrifying). A lady I know at church will be taking her increasingly frail mother into her and her husband’s home, moving her up from Florida. Another older couple I know from church has a single (and employed) son living with them. An old friend of mine moved home last year help his father care for his Alzheimer’s stricken mother (she just died of cancer this month). The friends to whom I sold my house in Michigan have a daughter, son-in-law and grandson living in it with them (to everyone’s benefit financially). My niece and her husband and two very young children are moving in with her mother this very day, again, to everyone’s financial benefit (note: the husband has a job; my niece is a full-time mother) I think just about anyone who has sufficient personal connections could come up with examples similar to this.

I think that you ‘re making things more complicated than they need to be, what accounts for South Korea & Taiwan’s even lower TFR?

Or that of Honk Kong, Macau or Singapore?

In all of these cases, I would blame it on the high cost of starting a family (financial & social), in a non-farming environment children are a massive resource drain on the family resource (real-estate, education, day-care, etc…).

BTW If you think things are bad in East Asia, you should look at the TFR for Eastern Europe, and they don’t have anywhere near the Population Density issue that East Asia does…

If Japan where do lose half of it’s population over the next fifty years, it would still be one of the most densely populated country in the world…

Yeah, well Japan is still a net exporter, although they did run a trade deficit for a few years some years ago. This still make more cars and semiconductor chips than we do, and they are not into demographic replacement with lower human capital people like we are. At least the Japanese do not suffer from this problem:

Any human organization, whether it be a corporation, research institute, football team, or nation-state, is only as good as the human capital that comprises it. This is the reality that the liberal-left and most social-conservatives are in denial of.

You don’t need large numbers of people to accomplish stuff anymore. There are no longer any factories that employ thousands of people doing mundane jobs. They are all automated now. Brains are more important that brawn, with robotics and automation to do the rest. The following suggests that it will require even less people to do great things in the future.

Their per-capita productivity level is still obscenely high, and they manufacture high-value components, some of which cannot be had anywhere else on earth, at any price.

This is the basis of everything. As long as Japan maintains this capability, they will be just fine. The “parasite singles” live with their parents because rents are still high in Japan. Having lived in Japan for 10 years, I can tell you that the major cities are very crowded and housing very small.

Japan’s biggest problem is its government debt, which is running around 200% of GDP. They will have to grapple with this in the near future.

As far as the aging process itself goes and its effect on society, I view this as a temporary problem. I think the SENS therapies will be available in the next 30 years or so and most people will be rejuvenated by 2050.

In reference to your previous discussion about Wendell Berry and limits, it strikes me that the Japanese have come to understand and accept the notion of limits by limiting their birthrates in the Berry sense. You guys should recognize and applaud this.

Given a choice between marriage and work women are choosing not to marry. This is largely because the a woman’s role in marriage is burdensome and unpleasant. Women are opting out of a system that they used to have to join. Combined with a strong stigma against out of wedlock child rearing and disdain for adoption means population rates are cratering. Unwillingness to consider immigration means that there is no one to fill the gap.

Actually I don’t think this is true. Thing is, Japanese women are often okay marrying or dating western men, while Japanese men not only don’t talk to Japanese women, but western expat women as well. A good example is here at http://www.vagabondish.com/female-foreign-japan/ with some good commentary.

There’s also a lot of complaints about the soshoku danshi-the “grass eating men.” Essentially imagine metrosexuals but with little to no interest in actually pursuing women. An odd complaint if women reject marriage wholesale. While I think there is some truth to what you say, it’s not the entire explanation.

I think it’s actually the men. I think Japanese men are a dangerous combination: they are both passive, and idealize women. Someone defines “love-shy” men as men who approach romance not as a man does, but as a women does: passive, expecting to be courted, idealizing the act. I think Japanese men, and many western men in general, are becoming this.

It wasn’t an issue before because the culture was more or less intact. You worked at a job for life, had specific milestones and expectations, and it helped to disguise passivity. While it didn’t make for all that fulfilling marriages, at least marriages happened. But when that started to crumble with the recession and the various disasters and tragedies, they lost the goads that drove them to marry. So they either don’t bother, or disappear into various idealization of women cults. The dating sims, the lolita complexers, the doll otaku. Chasing platonic ideals. Of course it’s also mixed with some heavy sublimation. Those tentacle porn comics arose mostly because the american government prohibited depiction of genitalia and pubic hair in comics after WW2.

Of course, I’m a total outsider and this is fabrication from the outside. Reality is often a lot different from the inside. But I think that might be an answer, and not just for them. In lesser degrees it will be a problem for all men, whether its american women complaining there are no good men left, or in a hilarious article at http://www.spectator.co.uk/spectator/thisweek/10205/the-tragic-ineptitude-of-the-english-male-.thtml what a Canadian woman says that British men prefer each other over them.

Last year I read the book “Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche” by Ethan Watters. (You need to read it if you haven’t already, Rod. You would really like it.) At one point he talks about the Japanese and suicide. According to his research, extreme melancholy has always been admired as a sign of a person capable of great sensitivity in Japan. Suicide has been seen as a sort of romantic braveness by an extremely sensitive soul.

Japan does seem to be a very different culture. I’ve never been a fan of it, but I know of many people (mostly in the under 40 demographic) who find it very appealling. I also agree with the comment above about women. It’s still pretty normal for a man to ask a woman to marry him by asking, “will you make my miso soup for the rest of our lives?” A wedding proposal that references cooking duties probably isn’t all that appealling to a lot of women who have the choice. lol

Don’t be so sure they are not ashamed. I rather suspect the shame is a private one, perhaps only partly admited to consciousness, that they are a failure and will never accomplish anything at all, dishonoring their families

Well, what I mean is that it’s not traditional shame or dishonor. That is at heart communal. You kill yourself because of others. Taking responsibility for a failure, someone leaving you, etc. This is just pure alienation, and a sign of atomization.

Lots of depressed and hopeless people, that’s what’s up Nah, there’s also something uniquely japanese. I’ve been noticing a lot of nihilism come over the pipes lately. Again, not sure what, but it’s more than just economic factors.

If Japan where do lose half of it’s population over the next fifty years, it would still be one of the most densely populated country in the world…

Meh, that density is due more to the shortage of habitable land than any real overpopulation or population surplus. That doesn’t mean they would escape negative aspects of it. One such aspect is how rural Japan is slowly dying: it empties out of the few young people it births because there are no wives (unless you buy a Korean slave-wife, i mean mail-order marry one) and no jobs. So they leave, and eventually the town is filled with octogenarians and can’t support a population.

It’s definitely the economic situation, but that combined with a culture which lacks the forward looking focus of Christianity (or Islam, for that matter). Now to be sure, Buddhism is a subtle and sometimes beautiful religion with much to recommend it, notably a very elevated ethical system. But Buddism is an “eternal” religion with nothing much to say about the future and whose ultimate goal is peronal extinction. Moreover most Japanese are thoroughly secular, so whatever inspiration Buddhism (or their native Shinto) could offer is not available to them anyway. It’s worth noting here that Scandinavia which is also fiercely secular (but has a decent economy) likewise has elevated suicide rates. How is life to be lived with no place for hope to center?

Abelard Lindsey, thank you 100x for pointing out that in a highly-productive world with globalization, efficient internet communications, and automation, that human labor is to a large degree *unnecessary.* Countries which are adjusting their populations accordingly (especially when it seems to be ‘unconscious’) are the realistic ones.

From Douhat in the NYTimes: Our family structures are weakening, but high out-of-wedlock birthrates may be preferable to no births at all.

Only if you don’t care about being taxed into the next century to pay for / subsidize out-of-wedlock births, which in the USA tend to happen to those most economically vulnerable and least able to support their children.

caroline, to my knowledge, same-sex attraction/ sex / relationships are treated very differently in Japan than in the West. People don’t define themselves so much by “gay” or “straight” as by the behavior itself, and what particular kind of sexual “type” you’re interested in. To my knowledge, gay sex is widespread and available (regardless of marital status,) but there isn’t much of a politicized “gay identity.”

Finally, re: the hikikomori. It’s thought that it happens because of widespread, unchecked bullying (ijime) in Japanese schools. Japanese kids, to my knowledge, are raised very gently and lovingly by their doting mothers until age six, when they go to school – and then they’re basically thrown to the wolves as far as bullying is concerned. Teachers largely have the attitude of “let them fight it out,” “it will toughen them up,” etc. What actually happens is that a minority of young men (mostly) end up leaving school after middle school (which is legal), don’t go to high school, or leave high school and retreat to their homes, sometimes for years.

If this is true, that would make the hikikomori response quite realistic – because that’s how people cope with severe post-traumatic stress. Since most western nations have virtually no psychiatric infrastructure anymore (outside of prescriptions for anti-depressants and anti-psychotics), hiding in your room for years might actually represent attempts at self-healing.

From what I’ve read, the hikikomori condition is not permanent. After some years, many men come out of it, and do pick up their lives where they left off.

This. Japanese cities like Tokyo and Osaka are very crowded, but go much outside of them and it is empty. The entire island of Hokkaido is depopulating and returning to the wild. I don’t think Japan is doomed or anything, but they have a problem and I don’t think they know how to fix it.

“Abelard Lindsey, thank you 100x for pointing out that in a highly-productive world with globalization, efficient internet communications, and automation, that human labor is to a large degree *unnecessary.* Countries which are adjusting their populations accordingly (especially when it seems to be ‘unconscious’) are the realistic ones.”

It is interesting to think about that.

I was unemployed for a while and felt like my life had no purpose. I was deeply depressed. As soon as I started working again, I felt great.

Am I an outlier? Can others find meaning in their lives without work better than me? Did I feel depressed because Americans identify themselves with their work more than other European/Asian 1st world cultures? Would I have been so depressed if I was unemployed and living in Japan or France? Will something be lost when humans no longer have to work? I don’t know.

The “Japan is dying” story can get overplayed, but it is a reality, particularly outside Tokyo and Osaka, and it does bode ill for the society as a whole. There is, for example, the massive problem of literally thousands of rural communities in which it’s becoming increasingly difficult to maintain basic infrastructure and services because the average age of the population is just too old to perform those services–one Japanese journalist wrote a book on this issue a couple years ago, and according to his data, there are upwards of 7,000 rural communities that are on the verge of collapse. (For this reason, many of the towns and villages destroyed by last year’s tsunami will never be rebuilt.)

Some assert that there’s an upside to this: A less crowded, more environmentally sustainable Japan. But I think this view is pollyannish in the extreme: As the fate of these rural communities suggests, you may be able to sustain a welfare state with a stable or slowly declining population, but you cannot do so with a swiftly declining population coupled with increased longevity, particularly if you refuse to ameliorate the problem by increasing opportunities for immigrants (or, indeed, for immigration). If you consider that our social security program is headed for trouble – with a rising population – it should become clear that the impending collapse of the welfare state that Japan faces is terrifying. Couple these issues with a rising and still-growing China, and things become even more frightening.

Tokyo and Osaka still feel vibrant, but travel to my wife’s hometown, just outside the prefectural capital: Last time we were there, it was sobering indeed: Few children to be seen anywhere, and the vast majority of the street advertising (billboards, placards, etc.) were devoted to services and goods targeted at the elderly. Prospects for Japanese young people make those of our Occupy protesters seem brilliant by comparison: Last I saw, upwards of 35% of all Japanese workers were temp employees, with no benefits, hourly wages, and no prospects (because once off the career track-which depending on the year you graduated, you may very well be, just as a matter of timing-you’re always off). Young people find it increasingly difficult to get married and form families because their prospects are so poor (and because the expectations that men have steady, stable employment before marrying has not adjusted accordingly).

Finally, for those who think that Eamonn Fingleton has anything intelligent to say about the state of contemporary Japan, please read this magnificent takedown, here: http://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/spiked-eamonn-fingleton/. And anybody with a passing interest in what inexorable population decline looks and feels like, browse the other sections of that blog, which is less a blog than it is a collection of brilliantly written photo essays of the decline of rural and not-so-rural Japan. The series on Hokkaido is especially good, but almost all of them are engrossing. But do yourself a favor: Find a comfy chair, some music in a minor key, and a stiff drink with which to accompany your reading.

I was unemployed for a while and felt like my life had no purpose. I was deeply depressed. As soon as I started working again, I felt great.

Am I an outlier? Can others find meaning in their lives without work better than me? Did I feel depressed because Americans identify themselves with their work more than other European/Asian 1st world cultures? Would I have been so depressed if I was unemployed and living in Japan or France? Will something be lost when humans no longer have to work? I don’t know.

This is why a growth-oriented economy is essential for psychological as well as physical well-being, and why people like Wendell Berry are dead wrong about economic growth.

Low fertility is an inevitable consequence of a stagnant, no-growth economy. No one right in the head is going to have kids in a long-term no-growth economy. Its better to remain single (or be a childless married couple) and enjoy life on a limited budget in such an economy.

You can have a steady-state, no-growth economy or you can have reasonable fertility. But you cannot have both.

And anybody with a passing interest in what inexorable population decline looks and feels like, browse the other sections of that blog, which is less a blog than it is a collection of brilliantly written photo essays of the decline of rural and not-so-rural Japan. The series on Hokkaido is especially good, but almost all of them are engrossing. But do yourself a favor: Find a comfy chair, some music in a minor key, and a stiff drink with which to accompany your reading.

Thanks for that blog link, the essays really are amazing. The one on karaoke especially.

JonF: Don’t forget the sexual imbalance in China, too. Lots of “surplus” males, the “little prince” syndrome in full force and effect (thanks to that “one child” policy), and not a hikikomori to be seen.

China’s demographic implosion is going to be far nastier than Japan’s, for those reasons. “Wars and rumors of wars” aren’t going to be the half of it.

If you really believe in this limits to growth stuff peddled by the likes of Wendell Berry, then you should applaud the reduction of fertility in Japan and want to reduce the birthrate here in the U.S.
I live in the Portland Oregon area. I think the fertility rate around here is already at the Japanese level.

I’ve said it before and will say it again. Being a “slacker” is a rational, fulfilling choice in a semi-permanent stagnant economy. The first rule of thumb in a no-growth economy is to avoid overhead like the plague, and doing the family thing is big-time overhead.
I’ve lived in no-growth economies twice in my life, the first was Japan in the 90’s and the second is here now.

I think “conservatives” like Wendell Berry are even worse than the liberal-lefty types. Either case, you have a crappy economy. But at least with liberals you get to have a decent social life and a good time. Anti-growth conservatives don’t even offer this.

Take a good look at Japan. This is our future with a non-growth economy. Anyone who thinks we can avoid it, or would even want to, is completely delusional. You can have a no-growth economy or you can have family values. But you cannot have both.

My prediction is that if the recession is semi-permanent, like that of Japan, the U.S. fertility rate will be comparable to Japan’s or Europe’s by the end of this decade.

There is another issue. Americans traditionally have been an optimistic people, unlike the Europeans. Americans have kids as an expression of their belief in an open, positive future. Take away the vision of an open, positive future and most Americans will choose not to have kids at all. Religious belief will decline precipitously as well. Why? Because religion is also an expression of pioneering and the positive, open future. This is the reason why Americans, until now, have remained largely religious while Europeans have not. American Christianity is based on our pioneering values and is largely post-enlightenment (pre-enlightenment religion, which they used to have in Europe, is as dead and obsolete as the dodo-bird, it does not merit discussion), which is why it persists.

If you kill the American belief in the open, positive future, I guarantee you will also kill religious belief in America. There is no way to avoid this fate as well.

Robert Zubrin has recently written a book about this, called the Merchants of Despair. I highly recommend everyone here read it. Like Zubrin, I do not believe you can have any kind of American conservatism without a growth-oriented economy and the vision of the open, positive future. Also like Zubrin, I believe a physical frontier is necessary for spiritual and psychological health. I believe human society that lacks a frontier devolves pathologically.

P.S. Despite my rantings and ravings about religion, I actually am a spiritual person. I believe that pioneering (in the Robert Heinlein sense) is the real basis of spiritualism. Accept no substitutes.

The notion that religion only flourishes in good times and optimistic cultures is a bit bizarre and flies in the face of much of history. How to explain the early Middle Ages, which had neither a growing economy (quite the contrary in fact) or much optimism about anything? Marx’s snark “Religion is the opiate of thge people” is overstated but there’s a kernel of truth in it: people turn to religion in times of trouble.